Neelambari Bhattacharya

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Explorations will involve two women filmmakers to explore a Zubaan-published story on witchcraft titled Cast Out authored by Samhita Arni, by developing a distinct design vocabulary through a collaborative process of experimental storytelling. Neelambari Bhattacharya is the Coordinator for this project. 

Neelambari Bhattacharya is a self-taught filmmaker and a social sciences researcher, who has done her MA in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics. Neelambari was Director’s Assistant to Nandita Das in the film Zwigato in 2022. She has been involved in pitching fiction for film adaptation for Collective Crew, a production company started by actor Padmapriya Janakiraman. As a social sciences researcher, she has been a Research Associate at Oxford Policy Management on a World Bank project on gender and agriculture, and has worked with Population Council for a UN Report on Child Labour. Neelambari’s artistic collaborator, Triparna Maiti is an animator trained at SRFTI, Kolkata, who has been working in the film industry, and has also contributed to Moinak Biswas’s animation installation in Shanghai Biennale 2016, curated by Raqs Media Collective. Given her experience, Neelambari Bhattacharya is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

This project will explore the making of a unique design aesthetic by two women filmmakers experimenting with animation film process, to tell the story of a utopian island of women magicians. Set in the socio-political context of more than 2500 cases of witch-burning in India from 2000 to 2016, this short animation pre-production exploration, is about arriving at a design aesthetic through collaboration, to bring to life the narrative in the fictional piece titled Cast Out by Samhita Arni. Cast Out is about a fishing village that subjects the girl magicians in the village to death by drowning, in which the protagonist girl is rescued by the sailors in a ship with an all-female crew from an utopian island of women magicians.  

The artistic process includes audio/visual recording of the story-telling, breaking the recording into a cinematic three-act structure for the 30-minute short animation film, transcribing the story-telling recording, storyboarding for the animation, including character design and world building, brainstorming with the author, puppeteers, painters, rotoscoping experts, feminist cinematographers, Dalit and trans activists, and filmmakers, towards the making of the pre-visualisation bible. 

The outcome of the project will be the pre-production process of the animation film adaptation of the fictional piece. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be an audio/ visual recording of the storytelling, pre-visualisation bible, (including the design aesthetic, visual script, soundscape) and a learning document, as a compendium of the artistic process in this interdisciplinary collaboration.   

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to think through the gendered artistic medium of animation film, to reflect on the social evil of witch-burning still prevalent in the subcontinent, through the exciting artistic process of film adaptation of a literary fictional piece in the fantasy genre.    

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm by convening an online gathering of artists coordinating Explorations projects. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.